March 26, 2008
From the Senior Pastor . . .
I can’t remember ever before looking out our kitchen window during breakfast on the Monday after Easter and seeing snow fall from the sky.
I also can’t remember the last time Easter came as early as the 23rd of March. If I’m doing my calculations correctly, I believe March 22nd is the earliest possible date for Easter, since, as many of you know, Easter is the first Sunday after the first full moon after the spring equinox.
Whatever the date or weather, it was a wonderful time of worship and celebration this past Sunday morning.
I want to express my thanks to Jeremy and Pastor Mullinax for all their hard work in putting together the worship service. I want to thank Ann and the rest of the office staff for their printing of a beautiful bulletin. And I also want to thank Alayne, Melissa, Todd, the choir and the other musicians for offering up their talents in praise of our risen Lord.
And for all of you who joined the choir at the end of worship to lead us in the singing of the Hallelujah Chorus – thank you, thank you, thank you.
As we talked about on Sunday morning, in the beginning God created man and woman to serve as image bearers of Him. One way we image Him is through our ability to write, play and sing music that honors Him while encouraging and enlightening our hearts and minds.
Sunday morning, as we sang about the Lord God omnipotent reigning, I thought about Tevia in the musical A Fiddler on the Roof. If you’ve seen the play, you may remember that when his family and community are threatened with another pogrom, Tevia suggests to God that this would be good time for the Messiah to come.
Of course, sadly, what Tevia failed to understand is that the Messiah has already come, and His Name is Jesus.
But as I stood beside my wife singing the music of Handel and the words of the Old Testament, I found myself suggesting to the Lord that this would be a good time for Him to come again.
He didn’t return, but He was there. Powerfully present, as believers joined together, not only at CPC, but in many other places of worship throughout our community, as well as around the world, to sing of His victory over sin, death and the grave.
And how eager it makes us for the day when the kingdoms of this world will visibly become the Kingdom of our Christ and of our God.
Thank you one and all.
May the Holy Spirit enable us to focus upon the task at hand as we live our lives from day to day. May we strive in the strength that He provides to know Him and to make Him known through all we do and say.
I pray that the Lord will richly bless you, accomplishing in and through you more than you can ever ask or imagine.
He is risen! He is risen, indeed!
And perhaps one of these mornings, instead of snowing, the trumpet will sound, the arch angel will give a shout, the Lord will descend, we shall see Him as He is, and we will be like Him in all our thoughts, words and doings.
And then, throughout all eternity, we will (all) sing with clear voices His praises.
Pastor Caines